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Mitt Romney and Republicans in Congress embrace -- warily

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have increased communication in the past few months. | AP Photo

For now, there are no joint appearances with Romney, Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the works. With Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul still in the race, Boehner will be forced to keep the presumptive nominee at arm’s length since he has been tasked to settle convention disputes.

And it’s not clear whether there will be a new agenda rolled out by congressional Republicans and Romney.

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Some of their policy positions are not totally lined up. For instance, Romney’s campaign said last week that it wouldn’t change the so-called Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which made it easier for women to sue their employers over allegations of pay inequity.

The comments came despite the fact that all but three House Republicans and five Senate Republicans voted against the legislation over concerns it would lead to scores of frivolous lawsuits and fail to level the playing field. Now, Romney allies say there’s no need to litigate the three-year-old law again.

But in an interview, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Romney’s team made a political mistake on the Ledbetter issue.

Instead, Graham said, Romney must aggressively make the case that Republicans would do a better job of giving hard-working Americans the opportunity to succeed — rather than the government dictating what the playing field should look like.

Still, Graham said Romney shouldn’t worry about losing support from the right as he shifts to general-election mode and courts Democrats and independents who will determine the election’s outcome.

“I would argue that conservative Republicans are probably more motivated to beat Obama than they are to elect Romney,” Graham said.

Thune, who stumped for Romney in Colorado over the weekend, said he expected a “seamless” effort between House and Senate Republicans and Romney to project a unified front.

But Thune added that Romney should do “whatever is in the best interest of attracting 50 percent plus one” of the electoral vote.

“If that means in some ways running against Congress, then more power to him,” Thune said with a laugh.

Romney and the establishment have won. By settling on Romney, it means that no right wing candidate can win in general election. Does that mean Conservative and Tea Party have failed? Big Yes! They do not trust their own ideology. They have failed miserably. In general election has to blame themselves.

“I wanted to increase the work requirement,” said Romney in New Hampshire. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”

So, Romney thinks poor housewives should know the dignity of "work" but those who marry rich husbands should not. Interesting.

FYI: This has aboslutely nothing to do with people who get goverment assitance. THE POINT is that Romney said "dignity of work" is tied to actually working outside the home. So, since Ann didn't work outside the home...does she lack dignity?

It is a LOSING cause, as Romney can't pick-and-choose when he will embrace the GOP's agenda in Congress and when he will not. As the GOP presidential nominee, HE (Romney) heads the Republican Party now, and their fortunes rise or fall on his ability to sell the GOP agenda to the American people in November.

And Romney is going to have an IMPOSSIBLE time Etch-a-Sketching to the center after declaring that he was a SEVERELY conservative governor and after embracing losing propositions with voters in the center and influential voters in particular swing states. Romney's embrace of personhood amendments, overturning Roe. v. Wade, shipping Latino Grandmothers back to Mexico who have been here for 25 years, war with Iran, tax breaks for the wealthy, and repealing Obamacare - especially the part of Obamacare that protects people from being dropped from coverage if they have pre-existing illnesses - are all LOSER ISSUES for the GOP for the very voters they need to attract.

From the start, Romney thought he could game the political system by being all things to all people depending upon when and what office he was running for, and now all of that is going to come back to bite him AND the GOP in the rear. You can NOT be for and against SO MANY issues and be taken seriously by the American people, and the Republicans are going to find this out the hard way in November.

Perhaps if President Obama and Harry Reid had been in synch we might have had a real budget and fiscal progress over the past three years.

On the other hand, perhaps a mediocre status quo is exactly what they do want.

Perhaps we have gotten use to be governed by presidents who rank in the bottom half of all the presidents we have had. I can remember IKE as president 8th, he was followed JFK 11th , who was followed by LBJ 14th. Since LBJ we have had only one president crack the top 50% mark and that was Reagan at number 17. Every other president has been in the lower half. I don't think we even want mediocre governance, that would be an emence improvement over what we had the last 12 years.

And it’s not clear whether there will be a new agenda rolled out by congressional Republicans and Romney.

An Etch-A-Sketch moment? Kum Ba Yah will be sung and all will join hands and be as one.

When in reality, the Repubbies don't like Rmoney, the poster child for the 0.01%, the guy with the Swiss bank accounts, the guy who only pays 15% tax on his $22 Million dollar income, even if he is one of them.

But they expect YOU to like him, and vote for him too.

The Repubbies don't like him, and the conservatives can't stand him. The question is how many of them will hold their nose and vote for the representative of the "Ruling Class", the Plutocrat candidate, the "Man of the Wealth"?

“I wanted to increase the work requirement,” said Romney in New Hampshire. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”

There's an easy explanation for this. Romney thinks rich women who stay home to raise children work hard; poor women who do so are lazy and undignified. I'm sure that will go over well with the conservative crowd. Independents and women on the left? Not so much.

Yes, starshine, young mothers with two-year olds who have never learned the value of independence from the government handouts that, at best, provide subsistence support, should go back to work rather than become habitually dependent. Good child care is one means of providing access to a successful future. Once a single woman, especially an under-educated, teenage mother, begins to have children without the benefit of a supportive spouse, the young woman and her child (children) have a far greater possibility of living a life of poverty and limited choices than the woman who is married to a supportive spouse, has planned to begin a family, and is sufficiently mature to understand basic household and child-rearing economics. I'm sorry you don't understand these facts. That said, the Great Society has had very little success in delivering its promises to lift men and women out of poverty. Why is that? I'm not sure there is a single variable that isolates the reason, but there is a strong positive correlation between education and success, between two-parent families and the success of their children, and the limited time women and their children depend on public welfare and the success of children. Whatever we are doing through public policy intervention is clearly insufficient. I would suggest there is a strong correlation between the promises based on the assumption that government programs can solve all social and economic problems and the evidence that the growth in the number of people who are disappointed and/or angry because the bureaucratic rules associated with those government programs may actually grow the problems.

It's utterly hilarious to know while Romney is attempting to tack back to the left, the GOP is virtually dragging him down like crabs in a barrel! Can you say "Sacrificial Lamb of 2012" as the new title for Willard, as the Great White Dope party has already pre-determined who the scapegoat will be for a political beatdown from Obama even WORSE than McCain received.

I don't think the Evangelicals will vote for a Mormon in large numbers--they won't vote for President Obama either, but they will just stay home, along with the majority of women, liberals, young people, ec.

At least the House has passed a budget and has a plan to save Medicare and Social Security.

They have a plan to "save Medicare" for those senior citizens wealthy enough to cover the difference between the value of the Medicare voucher and the premium cost. And with the voucher value growing at a slower rate than insurance premiums, that will be an ever-shrinking group. For all the other senior citizens, they are out of luck.